


Between the Lines

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Libraries, M/M, POV Isabelle Lightwood, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Sad with a Happy Ending, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 07:28:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19352296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: With a slap on Jace’s shoulder, they start off again and it’s another ten minutes or so before Alec finally seems to reach his destination.Izzy stands at the base of the stairs with Jace as she frowns.Jace is the first to speak as he crosses his arms over his chest. “A library? That’s where you dragged me off on forty five minutes of sleep? A goddamn library?”Or, Izzy finds out where Alec goes in the mornings.





	Between the Lines

Isabelle nudges Jace as they round the corner. Jace just shrugs in a gesture that’d be familiar on his parabatai and rolls his eyes.

Even though it’s early, the sun shines down on the New York sidewalk they’re strolling down. Izzy looks down at her feet, still mildly surprised to see sensible sneakers on instead of her usual heels.

Alec would be able to hear her stilettos from a mile away even with a soundless rune.

Her and Jace are dressed to blend in with the people around them. It’s early on a weekday so there’s no leather, no revealing clothes. Jace is still in an all black ensemble-- jeans matching his plain t-shirt-- and Izzy’s wearing workout clothes.

Throwing her hair up into a ponytail as they follow Alec, Izzy’s curious.

She’d first noticed Alec’s little excursions a few months ago. A couple of mornings each week, he’d climb out of bed-- and part of Isabelle thought her brother didn’t even go to sleep, just rolled in from patrol, took a shower, and headed right out again-- and disappear for a few hours, even most of the day.

The one time she’d asked him about it, he’d been infuriatingly tight-lipped. Something about being restless and needing to clear his head all he'd offered.

She might have believed him but he only ever left on Monday and Thursday mornings. She’d let it go for awhile but no one-- least of all Alec-- would ever accuse her of being anything but nosy.

Roping Jace into things had taken a little convincing. He hadn’t noticed his parabatai’s habits until she’d pointed them out and then he’d been mostly uncaring. But Isabelle had a way of planting niggling thoughts and sooner rather than later, Jace found his own curiosity ignited.

It’s officially summer and even though it’s just before nine in the morning, it’s sweltering in the city. As they trail Alec, though, he looks patently unbothered. He weaves his way through throngs of businessmen looking like he a man on a mission.

Still, Izzy sees the way he hunches his shoulders and it makes her sad, how her brother is always trying to fade into the background.

They’re all full-fledged shadowhunters now, Izzy the newest of their little trio to graduate from The Academy. Alec is great on the field but when he’s by himself or not reaching for his bow, he shrinks into himself.

Alec pauses up ahead and she immediately freezes before reaching for Jace and hauling them both into an alley so that Alec doesn’t see them. She's glad she had the forethought to activate their speed runes.

She counts to eight-- that’s how long Alec always waits when he thinks he’s being tailed-- and breathes a sigh of relief when she peaks her head around brick and sees her brother continuing on his way, oblivious.

With a slap on Jace’s shoulder, they start off again and it’s another ten minutes or so before Alec finally seems to reach his destination.

Izzy stands at the base of the stairs with Jace as she frowns.

Jace is the first to speak as he crosses his arms over his chest. “A library? That’s where you dragged me off on forty five minutes of sleep? A goddamn library?”

“Shut up, Jace,” Isabelle says absently as she stairs at the sign declaring this to be one of the New York Public Library’s branches. It’s the one nearest the Institute and not where Izzy thought the trail would lead.

Still, she shrugs and urges Jace to follow her as they jog up the stairs.

The library’s just opened and as they walk in, looking perfectly mundane, Isabelle enjoys the cool quiet.

There are a dozen people milling about and she sees a few kids running towards the children’s area in front of a harassed looking mother.

She and Jace take their time walking around. She has no idea where her brother disappeared off to but it’s not a hardship to look for him.

When she finally does, something relaxes in her.

Jace is actually the one to notice him first. He pulls Isabelle back with an insistent hand on her shoulder and she’s just warming up her glare when she sees he’s pointing to something.

Someone.

For there Alec is in a chair in front of the wall of windows. The morning sun frames him in gold and her breath catches. He looks both like an angel and tragically human. His hair is messy and there are shadows under his eyes that are visible all the way across the sitting area.

He looks separate from everything else, lost in his own world.

His tall frame is folded into a chair that looks like it would be downright cozy for a person half his size. Alec doesn’t seem to care, though. No, he looks perfectly content as he reads the book in his hand.

Beside her, Jace snorts softly. “Yeah, he’s up to no good. I’m so glad we stalked him so we could see him read a book.”

Izzy doesn’t deign to reply. Instead she abandons Jace and walks along an aisle of bookstacks. She runs her hand over book spines as she studies her brother from under her lashes.

No one disturbs Alec and he doesn’t move from his spot for ages. He’s totally absorbed in the pages of his book. He doesn’t flinch when a class of children stampedes inside screaming and laughing. He doesn’t look up when someone starts shouting about their fines at the checkout counter.

He makes his steady way through the book and eventually, Izzy and Jace find themselves seated in chairs across the room where Alec can’t see but they have a nice vantage point on him.

He gets up after awhile and Izzy looks down at her phone to see it’s going on noon. When he returns a few minutes later, it’s with a coffee in his hand. If Izzy didn’t know better, she’d say it was a frappucino with buckets of caramel drizzled on top.

Returning to his book posthaste, Isabelle spends her day watching her brother, flipping through a medical journal, and thinking about the closest person in her life and how’s he’s still such a fucking enigma sometimes.

Her back aches a little from staying in one position for so long and Jace is snoring next to her. Elbowing him in the side when she finally sees Alec close the book, Jace startles before settling down.

They watch as Alec turns the back cover over, staring at it for a long moment before he sighs. Isabelle feels the sigh in her own chest, it’s so damned heavy, and then Alec’s standing.

He’d finished the book.

He walks out without a backwards glance, leaving the book on the table for a page to shelve eventually. 

Isabelle and Jace wait until they’re sure Alec’s gone before they stand and walk over to his chair. Izzy reaches for the book and turns it over to read the title.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.

Izzy doesn’t know it and by Jace’s look, he doesn’t either. With a shrug, she reads the synopsis on the little flip inside the front cover. Jace reads over her shoulder.

When she realizes, Izzy’s heart breaks.

 _Oh Alec_ , she thinks.

Neither she nor Jace are surprised. When she looks up to meet his eyes, she sees the same understanding in them.

It hurts that her brother can’t be who he is, that he has to hide himself from everyone-- including them. 

She understands, though, as much as it pains her.

Suddenly feeling chastised at intruding on one of Alec’s only ways to escape-- to acknowledge a part of himself in the only way he conceivably can-- Izzy looks around as though to make sure Alec’s not about to jump out and reprimand her.

Carefully putting the book back down on the table, she turns to leave, Jace in step with her.

They don’t talk about what they saw. The walk back to the Institute is silent, each of them lost in their own thoughts. When they enter OPs and Alec’s there, asking where they’ve been, they look at each other in a panic before Jace says that the two of them had gone to a late lunch.

Alec gives them a weird look but doesn’t press the issue. Instead, he’s preoccupied taping his hands and Izzy catches the sharp look Jace throws his parabatai.

Jace follows Alec without a backwards glance and it doesn’t take but a second to realize where her brother is going and why Jace had looks so damned heartbroken for a split second before he'd schooled his expression into his usual blank arrogance.

They head to the training room and Izzy watches as Alec disappears into the room, his shoulders a tense, unhappy line.

She can’t imagine what weight must be pressing down on them.

After that, Alec continues to take his mornings for himself a couple of times a week. And while Isabelle doesn’t ask Jace to go with her again, sometimes she joins Alec at the library. 

She learns to love the dynamic space. She reads books on forensics and weaponry and even a few thrillers just for fun. She even buys a library card and takes one of the little schedules of programs, interested in a presentation on emergency room FAQs and thinking of how to implement it in the Institute's infirmary. She always makes sure that Alec can’t see her but she likes to think that he wouldn’t mind too terribly much if he knew that she was there, in her own chair across the room, letting the sounds of mundanes soothe away any stress and fatigue from their lives.

Isabelle is always the last one to leave and she always looks at Alec’s book of the week. There’s A Picture of Dorian Gray and Rubyfruit Jungle and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. There’s paperback romances and biographies and regular fiction-- any and all genres, the only thing they have in common is that they’re gay.

Alec loses himself in those pages for hours on end, every single week without fail. Sometimes, she wonders how much good it does him since he always seems a little worse off after, shorter with her and Jace, training himself into exhaustion for hours afterwards.

She can’t begrudge him whatever temporary relief he may find, though.

And so, Isabelle says nothing and prays to the angel that this isn’t all that’s meant for Alec. 

It’s her most fervent and longstanding wish, for her brother to find happiness outside of the pages of his books, away from the sanctity of anonymity that the library provides.

It’s years later when she walks into her brother’s apartment and sees him reading a book with a bright pink cover. He doesn’t shy away from her gaze, instead looking up with a warm smile.

“What are you reading,” she asks as she sits on the other end of the couch.

Holding the cover up for her to see Red, White, and Royal Blue, Alec doesn’t flinch at her surprised, happy look.

“I didn’t have any meetings so I decided to stay home for the day and catch up on my reading.” He shrugs. “It’s been on my list for a few months.”

Izzy studies him for a long moment but Alec doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t duck his head. He meets her considering stare head on and his shoulders are straighter than she remembers and the shadows have vanished from his eyes so long ago that she almost doesn't remember them.

Almost.

She doesn’t say anything but Izzy supposes her feelings must be splashed across her face.

Alec’s smile grows quieter but no less genuine and he looks back down at his book, quickly losing himself in the story.

Isabelle, for her part, wanders over to Magnus and Alec’s library and picks out a book of poetry before settling down next to her brother.

They read until shadows grow long in the living room and Iz finds herself yawning. Without looking up, Alec lifts his arm and she doesn’t hesitate to snuggle into his side.

The last thing she hears before she falls asleep is the turning of the page and her brother’s soft laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


End file.
